Christmas is coming!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Now that Turkey Day has come and gone, 

I can officially start celebrating Christmas! (I refuse to be one of those people who starts at 

Halloween, I enjoy Thanksgiving too much to let it disappear.) However, I did a little early 

holiday shopping, and I'm already really excited to start baking Christmas cookies and treats!

I realize not everyone celebrates Christmas (you can still bake cookies though!) and not everyone

gets absurdly excited for the holidays like I do... for instance, my cat Beau:

dried cherry and almond cookies

Earlier this week, I received and email from Food Network that the 12 days of cookies are coming! A friend sent me a link to the promotion last year, and being a lover of cookies, I signed right up. Starting in late November, they email you 1 cookie recipe every day, for 12 days.

Last year, I received the recipe for these dried cherry and almond cookies with vanilla glaze, and they have become one of my favorite cookies. Of all time. Seriously, they're that good.

for coffee and camera lovers

I came across these in my DPS newsletter today and had to share...

Travel coffee mugs disguised as camera lenses! 

(or maybe they are camera lenses disguised as coffee mugs?)

English Tea at the Met

Yesterday, I took a trip into New York City to walk through Central Park and visit the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art with a friend. The Park and the Met are two of my favorite places 

in New York, and we spent hours wandering along paths and through exhibits. After all that 

walking around, we decided to take a break for English Tea at the Petrie Cafe in the Met.

gourmet pumpkin seeds: cajun and garlic-thyme

I love snacking on pumpkin seeds. Today, we are going to "kick things up a notch" 

and take pumpkin seeds to (a shamelessly easy) gourmet level.